A 30,000-year-old giant virus has been revived from the frozen Siberian tundra, sparking concern that increased mining and oil drilling in rapidly warming northern latitudes could disturb dormant microbial life that could one day prove harmful to man.

“Human activities are going to perturb layers that have been dormant for 3 million years and may contain viruses, [said microbiologist Jean-Michel Claverie of Aix-Marseille University in France].”

Comments (8)

If the virus was active, 30,000 thousand years ago and our predecessors survived it, we probably will. There is a reason why the virus disappeared. It is not that a cure was invented, rather than the ecosystem developed to fend it. If fear stopped development, we would still live in the middle ages. Human race has taken many risks to reach were we are today. We have sent artifacts to space not knowing what to expect. We have used weapons of mass destruction without knowing the lasting consequences. We have done a lot of things that, in retrospect, it was a foolish decision. Who knows maybe that virus is the cure for cancer.

For every action there is a reaction. Everything we have done have altered the course of the world. I think there are many perturbing things going on in the world right now for us to worry about a virus. Let the scientist do their job and let us wait and worry when it is time to concern

“Which one day can be harmful to man” or that one day prove beneficial for them. Up to today we don’t know anything about it; in the future perhaps it can become the cure to all human diseases or make us live longer. I think there are more potential benefits than possible threats.